


never known a darkness like the rural dark

by PilotintheAttic



Category: Original Work
Genre: Autobiography, Claustrophobia, Gen, Hallucinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 02:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8472772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilotintheAttic/pseuds/PilotintheAttic
Summary: Technically this is autobiographical but... hm. A vent piece from 2012/3, after a bad experience.





	

It’s dark, somewhere between nine and ten at night. It’s hard to tell without a watch. I left that at home. At least, the stars are out. I swear you never saw so many stars. 

I’ll start with setting. I’m in a little wooden-built cabin, rural Wales, middle of absolutely nowhere. We drove a long way to get there, I don’t know how long, I slept in short amounts in the van. The beds are a structure against one wall, two large shelves of wood, basic bunkbeds, the whole thing built for twelve people. Opposite this structure you have in the middle of the room a fire stove, black as night and with a funnel that reaches up through the roof. Past this, in the other wall, a row of small windows with various objects on the sills. On the left of the bed structure, a door, on the right, another door. There’s a bench against the other wall, where we drank hot chocolate before bed. 

I’m in a group of twelve. Youths, like me, we all know each other from school but I’m not particularly good friends with any. A couple of teachers, too. Some of them wanted to stay up and tell ghost stories, but it was decided we should sleep.

Or try to.

The group leader sets up a lamp or two, no electricity, while we all go to bed. I curl up in the sleeping bag, trying to get comfortable on the thin mat on the wooden shelf. Lower shelf, I can hear people shifting above me and beside me. I’m on the end of the row. I relax, lay still, listening to the conversations around me.

It’s dark outside, but the cabin is lit by the lamps. I am tired, journeys exhaust me and we had been doing activities all day after a several-hour drive to the main building, then at least 45 minutes to the cabin. I close my eyes. 

A slam, like a gunshot, tears sleep from me and I startle, wide awake. I can hear other people waking too, like me, and torches flicker around. The wind has blown the lock of the door on the left of the bed structure off. It was a thick plank of wood, nestled horizontally in a lock. A big lock. And the wind from outside blew it clean off. I can hear people complaining and someone gets up to put the plank in place again. I go back to sleep, pressing the side of my face to the jacket I’m using as a pillow. 

The door, again! Only god knows how much time has passed, the sky is still dark, and someone gets up and replaces the plank of wood again. There is a small amount of typical complaining, I roll my eyes and mumble about the wind, and sleep.

Gunshot. No, the door. This time the other door, the one I’m nearest to. This one wasn’t locked but the wind is going the other way now. I’m the only one who starts awake and I stare out towards it for a moment. It strikes me as odd that I cannot see anything. The lamp was put out and the only way I can know the location of the door is by the fierce wind that blows from the gap right into me. I turn away from it, it’s futile shutting it, and try to sleep. I shut my eyes tight.

And then I open them. I’ve started awake again, my heart is pounding, a cold sweat is covering me. I heard no door. I don’t remember hearing a door. I look around the cabin and this time I cannot see a thing at all. I put my hand out in front of my face and I can’t see it. I blink. But there’s no light for my eyes to take in, I’m completely engulfed in the darkness. 

The blinking was a bad idea. I shut my eyes tight and try to relax, but it isn’t long before I don’t know whether my eyes are open or shut anymore. I squeeze them closed again, real hard, but I grow tired and when I cannot feel the pressure I and confused again. I widen my eyes, I look wildly around. Are my eyes open or closed? 

I don’t even know what the time is. I lost my watch only a few days before and my phone is dead. I would give anything to know the time. I could have been staring into the dark for minutes, or an hour. Eventually it occurs to me I still have a tiny flashlight that fits via headband to my rockclimbing helmet. I fumble on the space next to my sleeping bag and find it, and press it on. It’s a very weak LED light but it lets my eyes adjust. I shine it on the far wall but it doesn’t reach that far and barely glints off the objects on the windowsills. 

I’m really tired now, and I just want to sleep. I burrow into my sleeping bag and pull it closed over my head to protect myself from the cold and the impossible dark. I keep the little light on between my hands in the bag and all I see is red material. It’s comforting and I can feel the edges, I know where I am. I’m grounded and it’s good. But it’s so warm. It’s too hot with the light on and sleeping bag closed. I turn off the light and the hot darkness closes in. I hate it and turn the light back on, but stick my head out of the sleeping bag. God, it’s so cold out here. I have to turn off the light because it’s suddenly too bright for me, too bright to sleep. 

It’s too dark. I shut my eyes, softly, and lay still to sleep. I think I manage it. Some time, though not even God knows how much, has definitely passed between my falling asleep and my waking up. 

I’m shaking.

I lay there and shake, not shiver, shake violently, and try to forget everything and sleep again. I think I do.

By the third time I wake up like this I am utterly exhausted, my nerves shot, eyes wide. I yearn for sleep. The shaking stops me resting, but I close my eyes anyway.

I can hear people talking. In front of me, I hear the group chatting. They must be sitting by the fire stove. I move my head to look at them and the voices stop abruptly. As if they never even existed. I strain, confused and spent, and I fix my gaze on the windows. Or where the windows should be. There’s no light but I fancy I see something outside. I blink and it’s gone. I put my head down again and roll onto my other side. My leg’s begun to ache, my hip digging into the wooden shelf beneath me. But now I’m facing the cold and it chills me in a way that makes me nauseous. I turn over again and try to ignore my hip. And the shaking, and the ache in my belly. 

The voices are back again and I open my mouth to reply. I don’t know what I plan on saying. “What’s going on?” maybe. I release the first syllable and the voices evaporate. I don’t say anything more.   
The night would be easier to handle if I only knew what the time was. How many hours of this do I have to endure? The shaking becomes unbearable and I curl in on myself in the sleeping bag. Too warm inside, too cold outside.

Voices again, I raise my head, mumble, stop. The voices are gone. The silhouette of a person I am certain was standing in the room, also gone. I am aware I am hallucinating. I’m so tired. I stay silent for the most part now, well aware that what you say while asleep is not the same as what actually leaves your lips. I mumble only to silence the voices. Just shut up and let me sleep, or please, please goddamn be real so I wake up in the morning and can leave this nightmare.


End file.
